Right off the bat, let me break the bad news: I have no magical secrets for growing out a pixie cut in any shorter time-frame than that generally dictated by your hair. To grow out a pixie, you need two things: patience, and a sense of humour. OK, three things. You will also need a good hairstylist. I have no patience, my sense of humour is questionable, but I do have an awesome stylist. All in all, it could have been worse.

Let’s go back to the beginning: spring 2011. My hair was a little bit longer than it is now, a bit past my collarbone. I had just finished growing out pixie cut #1 (total time invested: almost 2 years). Naturally, my thoughts turned to cutting it, again. I’m gonna blame this one on pregnancy hormones, because get this – I became convinced that getting a bob would be the most practical thing to do in view of my son’s impending arrival. No time for long hair with a newborn, etc. Chop chop.

Except that I forgot to take into account the fact that, in order for a bob to look nice, my hair would still require straightening and whatnot. I was a perpetually panicked first-time mom, so the most basic of grooming tasks seemed overwhelming at the time. When my son reached the grabby, hair-is-a-fun-chew-toy phase of baby development, I used that as an excuse for pixie #2. So it began.

I sported the prototypical first-time mom pixie cut for a good 6 months before the postpartum haze finally lifted, and I realized I’d made a terrible mistake. As I started to prepare to head back to work, I also started mentally preparing for the more tortuous task of growing out my pixie cut. Again.

Here is what it looked like, a couple of months in.

I can’t give you any technical details, but my stylist basically trimmed my hair every 8 weeks or so, making whatever slight adjustments she deemed necessary to allow growth to happen in a (mostly) becoming fashion.

I won’t lie. There were many, many terrible mornings. During the worst of it, I woke up every day looking like this:

I didn’t get to really celebrate growing out of that phase, because I moved right into this one. (I looked mostly like George, in case you were wondering. Sans ‘stache.)

Musically, at least, this was huge progress. But, basically, for what felt like the most eternal eternity (but was maybe something like 2-3 months), I did this every time I looked in the mirror.

Fiiiiiiiinally, I inched back into bob territory. This took about 9 months or so, counting from the time I decided to start growing out my hair. On the left side, you can see the tail end of my Bieber phase. On the right, pregnancy bob #2, which looks very much like pregnancy bob #1. Circle of life, etc.

During my second pregnancy, I made another big decision. Thankfully, this one turned out to be a smarter one. I got a perm.

I wrote about my perm before, but it was basically my attempt to make myself stick with the whole growing-out process. The perm adds texture and volume to my hair, and removes the need for styling on my part.

Strangely, there wasn’t much noticeable growth in the first 6 months or so after I got the perm. Still, my follicular situation was looking ok. (I got a re-perm in December 2013, but nothing drastic changed.)

I feel like I “turned the corner” on the growing-out process sometime around March, when my hair started grazing my shoulders. After that, things started to pick up. This was the summer when I completely overdosed on beach spray, which gave me awesome Medusa hair, and also completely dried it out.

I finally got a re-perm in August, and was surprised when my stylist told me that my ends looked fine and didn’t need a trim. I guess I have indestructible hair, or something. (Not really. I’m assuming the “secret” is the fact that I’m too lazy to blow-dry my hair, and I rarely straighten it.)

And here we are. Just about 2 years in, my journey is complete. I’ve grown out my pixie. You know what this means, right?

Psych.

I’m growing it some more. Maybe another 4-5 inches. Then I’ll cut it.

Just kidding.

I think.